


crooked little smile on her face (tells a tale of grace that’s all her own)

by alesford



Series: these are only moments [3]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Mild Language, One Shot, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, could maybe be rated G, nicole has other hobbies besides saving purgatory, so soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 03:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14844461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesford/pseuds/alesford
Summary: nicole paints with love and waverly thinks of all the times that nicole has drawn upon her skin, with lips and fingertips. nicole has been painting love across waverly’s body and filling her life with so much color and so many beautiful things, even when life is dark and scary.ORthe one where nicole likes art and loves her found family.





	crooked little smile on her face (tells a tale of grace that’s all her own)

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted some wayhaught softness in my life, and apparently between the hours of midnight and five am are when my brain prefers writing fanfiction to doing anything else (except maybe reading fanfiction). Thanks for reading, friends. 
> 
> Title from "Seven Years" by Norah Jones.
> 
> Any and all mistakes are my own. I don't own Wynonna Earp.

 

 

 

 **crooked little smile on her face (tells a tale of grace that’s all her own)  
** _if i were a painter and could paint a memory, i’d climb inside the swirling skies to be with you. - norah jones, ‘painter song’_

  


there’s a small shed behind nicole’s house.

it’s a nice little shed, made mostly of wood and painted a pretty sort of steel blue that looks more gray in the waning summer light. there’s a single-paned casement window that faces the east and allows just the right amount of sunlight to trickle in come daybreak. it’s nice. cozy. like it should be tucked away into secluded woods and not standing against the stark landscape of alberta.

still. it’s a nice little shed.

 

(truth be told, nicole had liked the two bedroom, one and a half baths house already but it was the shed that sold it.

‘this is perfect,’ she had said, once she’d stuck her head inside the old structure, checking for water damage and the quality of the interior.

‘let’s make an offer.’)

 

waverly had never thought much of it. a shed is a shed is a shed. the homestead has a barn and there’s not a lot to it except for too many bad memories.

(there are some good ones, she knows. like kissing before willa caught them. or realizing that she’d choose nicole in any and all lifetimes, right before they blew themselves up.)

she doesn’t think much of the shed until it’s a lazy sunday morning and neither of them have to work and there are no impending revenant or supernatural-related crises. knock on wood. it’s a lazy sunday morning and the sun has barely risen and waverly is alone in the bed that is more ‘theirs’ than ‘nicole’s’ these days. she runs a hand across the empty space and frowns when it’s cool.

‘how long has nicole been up?’ is the thought that passes through her head.

‘nicole?’ she calls out aloud. there’s no answer, not even a response from calamity jane in the form of a hiss or meow. ‘baby?’ she tries again.

the house isn’t that big. she’s shouted from the basement and nicole heard her in the upstairs bathroom.

waverly’s brow crinkles and she slips out from under the sheets and blankets, shivering when her bare feet touch the wooden floor that’s colder than she expects. she has a drawer here, multiple drawers really, and closet space, too. but she opts for one of nicole’s worn flannel shirts, red and black with holes threatening to appear in both elbows. she slips into a pair of her own leggings pulled from the third drawer on the right and stares into the closet until she spots her brown suede boots.

‘aha,’ she cheers for herself victoriously.

(even minor accomplishments should be celebrated every now and then, especially if it’s the asscrack of dawn.)

she walks the house just to be sure nicole isn’t inside before she steps out onto the front porch. she’s found nicole curled up on the porch swing there more than once, usually in the late evenings with a moosehead lager and a book. but nicole isn’t there and her truck is still in the gravel driveway with waverly’s red jeep beside it.

‘nicole!’ waverly shouts with a bit more urgency. what if some shit-eating revenant kidnapped her? _again_?

and then she hears it. ‘back here!’ comes nicole’s voice and it isn’t strained or concerned. it’s loud and clear and waverly follows it to the rear of the house. ‘i’m in the shed!’

the shed window is cracked open slightly and the door has been left ajar. it’s the end of august and it isn’t cold cold yet. the forecast for the day predicts a lovely twenty degrees but that doesn’t mean it isn’t only eight degrees in the early hours of the morning. it’s still brisk weather and waverly isn’t sure why both the window and the door have to be open.

‘baby, what are you doing in—’ waverly stops mid-question as she pushes the door gently and steps inside the nice little shed. her eyebrows lift in surprise.

dawning light spills through the open window, casting soft shadows across nicole’s side. She’s sitting on a stool in front of a small canvas that’s balanced on a beautiful oak easel. her back is to waverly and she has a paintbrush in hand, a palette of oil points within easy reach.

‘you paint?’

nicole turns then, dressed in blue and black plaid flannel

                    (great minds think alike)

over a gray t-shirt and her work-around-the-house jeans with paint stains and a hole in one knee. she has paint on her hands and a smudge of thistle purple on her cheek.

she laughs, light and happy. ‘not really, no,’ she tells waverly. ‘i like charcoals and graphite, mostly.’

she gestures to the mess of papers on the small, wooden desk pressed into the corner of the shed. nicole picks up her palette from the tabletop and her amber eyes encourage waverly further into the space. there are drawings of birds and flowers, of the homestead and even shorty’s. there are sketches of her and wynonna and doc and dolls and even jeremy. nedley stars in one of his own, stetson grasped firmly in one hand and a friendly but gruff look on his face. it makes waverly laugh and she sees nicole smile so, so tenderly at her. it makes her heart beat faster and her breath catch in her throat.

and waverly thinks back to all the doodles on napkins and in the margins of notes and the corners of old, crumpled memos.

‘nicole, these are amazing. you’re an _artist_.’

she breathes the last word, in awe and in love.

nicole shakes her head. ‘it’s just… something i’ve always done to clear my head. when my parents would fight or my brother got hurt, i’d go to my room and draw. it’s like… whenever i was having a rough time, i could create something new and good and escape for a little while.’

waverly frowns and steps even closer to nicole.

‘what are you trying to escape from, right now, baby?’

and nicole shakes her head again. ‘nothing, waves. that’s the thing. there are all these memories and moments that are so, so good because you’re there and wynonna and our friends are there. they’re special and i feel this urge to try to capture them, to remember and to cherish them.’

if it’s at all possible, waverly’s heart swells even bigger with love for the woman in front of her. she tells her this with a kiss, a gentle and unhurried press of her lips against nicole’s but she tries to convey everything she’s feeling.

‘i love you, nicole haught,’ waverly says, combing her fingers through nicole’s still bed-messy hair.

nicole smiles bigger, dimples showing as she says it back. ‘i love you, too, waverly earp.’

they’re still in the silence, content just to be near one another. there’s a warmth there, in being in the presence of a person you love, who you truly love. like a safety blanket or a hot mug of cocoa with marshmallow creme. they both breathe easier in moments like this.

‘so what memory are you trying to capture on canvas before breakfast?’ waverly asks after basking a little bit longer in the presence of her girlfriend.

‘the sunrise and you still in bed, smiling in your sleep. i normally use charcoal or graphite, like i said, but the colors, waverly. the colors were so, so beautiful and i had to try to capture all of that. i wanted to capture that for you.’

and waverly’s grin stretches even wider because somehow she keeps falling more and more in love when she didn’t think it was possible. ‘can i stay here while you finish?’ she asks.

nicole’s smile widens, too, and she answers the only way that she knows. ‘of course, waves.’

so waverly settles onto a second stool that nicole unearths from behind several canvases, some blank and some not, stacked against the wall. it’s inspiring to watch nicole paint, mixing colors to create butter yellows and tangerine oranges and peach-flesh pinks to recreate the morning sun through the window of (their) bedroom. she watches as nicole paints _her_ , asleep in (their) bed, smiling ever so slightly.

nicole paints with love and waverly thinks of all the times that nicole has drawn upon her skin, with lips and fingertips. nicole has been painting love across waverly’s body and filling her life with so much color and so many beautiful things, even when life is dark and scary.

the smiles don’t disappear from either of their faces as they spend their sunday morning in the nice little shed, painting memories and love across canvas and hearts.

 

 


End file.
